Saturday, August 27, 2011

New legal challenge for inquest

Doctors are preparing to challenge the Government’s decision not to hold an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly.

In June, Attorney General Dominic Grieve ruled one out after telling Parliament evidence that the weapons inspector killed himself was ‘overwhelmingly strong’.

He was responding to legal papers sent to his office by the doctors.

But now they have told the Daily Mail that they still believe it vital that a coroner consider the case and are seeking a judicial review of Mr Grieve’s decision.

The doctors said they had spent ‘a considerable amount of time reflecting on the situation’ and had read Mr Grieve’s recent response ‘extremely carefully’.

But they concluded that there were matters which he did not address satisfactorily and they felt ‘a duty’ to carry on with their campaign.

This month the doctors were given a 33-page legal opinion by Aidan O’Neill QC, a colleague of Cherie Blair at Matrix chambers in London, indicating that Mr Grieve’s decision could be judicially reviewed, paving the way for an inquest. They are now set to proceed, managed by solicitors Withers LLP.

Following a meeting with John Cooper QC last week in which they discussed how the case would be taken forward they have now asked to be represented by him during the judicial review.

The doctors are acting because they believe there are unanswered questions about Dr Kelly’s death.

Speaking on behalf of the other three doctors involved in the case, Dr David Halpin said: ‘We need to raise about £50,000 to cover stage one legal fees to take this to the High Court but we believe this must be done. Britain has great potential for good but many people know it is now mired in mendacity. They must help the doctors get light into the dark corner of the Dr Kelly cover-up. Truth must out.’

The lawyers must be formally instructed by August 30 so that proceedings can begin by September 8, the legal deadline by which the judicial review must be under way.

The doctors’ decision is likely to cause significant unease within Whitehall. No full explanation has been supplied for closing down the inquest into Dr Kelly’s death, which began as a matter of routine immediately after his body was found. It was replaced with a public inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton, who did not hear witness evidence under oath.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one former MP told the Mail that Dr Kelly’s death ‘almost certainly encompassed highly sensitive matters of national security which is why there was no inquest’.

Dr Kelly, a world-renowned weapons inspector, allegedly killed himself after being named as the prime source of a BBC report accusing Tony Blair’s government of lying to take Britain into the Iraq war.

His body was found in woods close to his home in Oxfordshire on July 18 2003. He had booked a return plane ticket to Baghdad, where he worked, on the morning he disappeared.

The Hutton Inquiry found that he killed himself after slashing his wrist with a blunt pruning knife and overdosing on painkillers.

Mr Grieve was presented with fresh evidence by the doctors and others questioning the official finding and highlighting irregularities.

This included the fact that there were no fingerprints on five items found with Dr Kelly’s body: the knife he allegedly used to kill himself, a watch, his mobile phone, an open water bottle and two blister packs of pills he supposedly swallowed.

Despite the police knowing about the lack of fingerprints at the time this was never raised at the Hutton Inquiry and was only established years later using the Freedom of Information Act.

There is also photographic evidence suggesting Dr Kelly’s body was moved after it was found.

Last year it emerged that in 2004 all medical and scientific reports relating to his death – including photographs of his body – were secretly classified for 70 years.
Much of the material affected by this highly unusual gagging order has still not been released and no legal explanation for it has ever been made.

Mr Halpin added: ‘Coroners, not politicians, should determine how, where and when someone has died. That is our law in our country. There is an element of David and Goliath here.’